


A Change of Life

by emungere



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-11-28
Updated: 2007-11-28
Packaged: 2018-02-27 07:43:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2684816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emungere/pseuds/emungere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Victorian nanny Hakkai.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Change of Life

The letter, folded in Georgina's embroidered handkerchief, expressed Lord Shaw's approval of her references and prayed she would find it satisfactory to begin her work with Lord Shaw's wards in two months time, as agreed. There was an air of desperation to the letter, George thought. Lord Shaw perhaps hoped she might start a good deal sooner, and no wonder, a bachelor alone with a girl nearly grown and her younger brother, neither of them even his kin. 

George set the letter aside and looked at his sister's dress, folded on his lap, white with sprays of blue flowers. Two dresses down in the trunk he was packing lay Georgina's braid, neatly tied at both ends with pink ribbon, heavy and glossy. He had stroked it earlier, held it like a cat on his lap as he went through her things. He should give them away. He wouldn't, couldn't.

The letter crinkled and rasped at him in its handkerchief as he laid the next dress on top. He paused. 

Georgina had been laid to her rest that morning, George and the old priest her only attendants. The sun had shone mightily. Birds sang. June roses dripped their garish colors on the grass. 

George let the dress slide to the floor and dug through strata of muslin and lace for her braid. He touched his own hair, curling down over his shoulders and thought:  _Maybe with some bobby pins_. 

***

"Sophronia and Meriwether are upstairs in the nursery," Lord Shaw said. He was considerably younger than George had expected, though with growing lines of worry around his eyes. 

"Large names for small children," George said. 

"They'll respond more readily to Merry and Sophia. If they care to respond at all." Lord Shaw passed a hand over his face and braced himself against the mantle as if against the mast on a rolling deck. "I want to be sure, Miss Sabin, that you understand your task here. These children came to me only six months ago, abandoned at the train platform. They are almost certainly...of natural birth. They have little use for manners. The parlor maid has found frogs in her bed more than once." 

"Unruly children do not worry me. I may find frogs where I do not wish them once, but I can assure you, my lord, that it will be  _only_  once." 

That seemed to jerk a smile onto Lord Shaw's face. It made him look still younger, and George wondered what had possessed him to take in these two. He was barely grown himself. 

"Well, you seem determined. Shall I call for them?" 

George nodded, but before any bell could be rung, the children spilled into the room through a half open window. 

The girl was tall and straight with golden hair and eyes of a shocking violet-blue. They seemed almost unnatural to George. The boy barely reached his sister's shoulder in height, and his hair, badly in need of cutting, flopped over his eyes. Both were covered in scratches and streaks of mud. 

"We don't need a governess," Sophia said. "I've told you."

"I should say this proves you do," George said. "A young lady of fourteen, nearly fifteen, dressed like a scullery maid and playing in the dirt? What would your parents think of you?"

"I imagine they would think as little as they did when they left us to make our way in the world. I have as much memory as I want of them, which is to say nearly none. You will have to find another threat to hold over me if you want my obedience." 

"I can see that I shall," George murmured. "Don't worry. Everyone has something they fear." 

Sophia and Lord Shaw gave him such identical looks of suspicion that one might've thought they were related after all. 

The boy, Merry, said only, "I'm hungry. Can we eat now?" 

"After you've washed," George said before Lord Shaw could speak. "With your leave, my lord." He gathered up his skirts and gave a practiced curtsey before shooing the children out of the room. 

Sophia, thankfully, was old enough to see to her own ablutions, but Merry clearly needed guidance. George could see that merely from the accumulated dirt behind his ears. 

They ate in the nursery afterwards, crowded together and silent at the small table over cold roast, potatoes, and rice pudding. From the poisonous looks Sophia aimed his way, George expected frogs rather sooner than later. 

"We'll begin lessons tomorrow," he said. "Can you read and write? Do you know any maths at all?"

"I can read and write well enough, and do sums," Sophia said. "Merry does fine."

"I can count to a hundred!" Merry said, and started to demonstrate. 

"Yes, that's--"

"Five! Six!"

"That's quite enough."

"Eleven! Twelve!"

Sophia sat back and smiled. 

"All right, I can see--"

"Twenty! Twenty one!" 

George stuck two fingers between his lips and whistled loudly enough to shake the windows. Merry stopped counting and put his hands over his ears. Even Sophia looked startled. 

"That will do," George said. "Thank you." He paused. "What were the two of you doing outside that put you in that state?"

"Spying on Walter the groom," Merry said. "He's a French agent. We're going to turn him in and get a reward and go to California." 

"I see. Do you think Lord Shaw would be lonely without you? This is a very large house for one person." 

"Oh," Merry said, momentarily downcast. He smiled again. "He can come with us! Right, Sophie?"

Sophia scraped the last quarter of her rice pudding round her bowl and shrugged one shoulder. "I suppose. If he has to." George wondered if he were imagining the faint color on her cheeks. 

***

Miss Sabin came to report to Jack Shaw after supper. She had changed her dress. It buttoned all the way up her throat with only the smallest white frill. Jack caught himself staring at the long row of pearl buttons that led down to her wrists. There was a bit of lace there, breaking over her pale skin and making her hands look more delicate than they probably were. 

"They seem very decent children," Miss Sabin said. "Lacking only a strong hand. I'm sure I shall have no problems." 

"I suspect you won't." Jack turned his silver cigar case over in his hands. He took one out and lit it, caught her disapproving glance and almost wished he hadn't. "I'm very glad you've come, Miss Sabin."

"I'm very glad to be here, my lord." She curtsied, and it was such a graceful movement, with the spread of her skirts and the bob of her head, that he couldn't help stare. 

He watched her leave the room, tall and severe in her grey dress, and sucked strongly on his cigar. She would do the children good. And he would be the perfect gentleman. He was never one to look for company among his own servants, no matter the provocation. Never mind that Miss Georgina Sabin was possibly the most provoking woman he'd ever met.


End file.
